Posted by kjohnson on Apr 24, 2012 in Blog | 2 comments
As I was reading an article in the Huffington Post, “One of the 25 Facts You Should Know (but probably don’t) About Christianity,” (1) I was surprised to read one of the facts I did not know.
The original seventh deadly sin was sadness – not sloth.
This article got me to thinking about why sadness might have been considered a sin. How do we view sadness today and how does it affect our... read more

Posted by kjohnson on Apr 17, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Perfectly Obedient
Children are taught to be obedient at the earliest possible age. If they aren’t, there is usually a penalty.
The importance of obedience, to me, was embodied in a performance I once observed of a professional knife thrower.
“Don’t move a muscle. Don’t even breathe,” the professional knife thrower said to his partner so the audience could hear. First he threw the knives at the... read more

Posted by kjohnson on Apr 10, 2012 in Blog | 2 comments
This post is a collaboration with Dawn Hoffmann
How hard is it to forgive? Do you think some things don’t deserve forgiveness? Do you think that along with forgiveness must also come forgetting? This may be a hard process to understand and maybe even fathom – forgiving, let alone forgetting, seems almost impossible sometimes.
In Luke, we find these words from Jesus: “Judge not, and... read more

Posted by kjohnson on Apr 4, 2012 in Blog | 1 comment
“Let us sing of Easter gladness that rejoices every day,
Sing of hope and faith uplifted; Love has rolled the stone away.
Lo the promise of fulfillment, Lo the man whom God hath made,
Seen in glory of an Easter crowned with light that cannot fade” (1)
This hymn of gladness echoes the promise Christ’s resurrection brought to all humanity — freedom from sin and death and the understanding... read more